The Happy Buddha E-Book

Nils Horn

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

How can Buddhism be helpful for people in the West? We learn the most important techniques of thought work, feeling work and meditation. We find the way to ourselves and to a happy life. 

Leseprobe

Nils Horn

The Happy Buddha

Buddhism as a path to inner peace, love and happiness

May all people be happy. May the world be happy. BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Content

Live in peace and be happy

Live in love

The daily spiritual alignment

Buddhism

Live like a Buddha

Refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha

The personal spiritual path

How to awaken inner happiness

Find your path of happiness

Happiness in five minutes

What is enlightenment

Nirvana

Doubt

Does God Exist?

Is there a soul?

The non-self

Is there life after death?

Is there a next life?

Reincarnation report

The Master of Karma

The Happy Bodhisattva

The middle path

Come to rest

Thought Stop

Breath Meditation

Mantra Meditation

Chakra Meditation

Walking Meditation

Mahamoggallana

The best exercises

Daily self-reflection

Move out stress

Progressive muscle relaxation

Bodyscan

Vipassana

Lung-Meditation

Zen-Meditation

Guru-Yoga

Creative Meditation

Tibetan Buddhism

Zen Buddhism

Pure Land Buddhism

Socially engaged Buddhism

How do we achieve inner peace?

Thought and feeling work

Techniques for working on our thought processes

Buddhism and positive thinking

The happy Buddha

Thích Nhất Hạnh

The Dalai Lama

Tulku Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

My Dzogchen Master

My Buddhist Path

Live in peace and be happy

Personal Empowerment: How to Live a Successful Life with Jack Kornfield | Salesforce - YouTube

What is the great secret of the spiritual path? The great secret is to live in rest and out of rest. From inner rest comes inner happiness. When a person rests relaxed in being, the inner happiness nature unfolds. In Buddhism, this is called Buddha-nature. Every human being has a Buddha-nature. Every human being carries within him the potential of happiness and enlightenment. The way of Buddhism is to awaken this inner happiness nature.

How can we awaken our inner happiness nature? There are several techniques for doing this. The most important techniques are meditation and thought work. But all the techniques have to be practiced properly to bring the desired success. This is the great feat on the spiritual path. It requires a lot of wisdom. Buddha has described the way. But his words are difficult to understand without knowing the state of awakening and enlightenment. There are many misinterpretations. There is also much dispute in Buddhism about the right way.

My basic insight is that peace, love, happiness, health and enlightenment arise in a person when the tensions in the body and mind are released. When a person becomes free from his inner tensions, then health and well-being can unfold in him. This should be obvious to everyone. The great miracle is that on this path also enlightenment, immeasurable peace, immeasurable happiness and immeasurable love can unfold in man. Man becomes an inwardly healthy, an inwardly healed, a saint, an enlightened one, a Buddha. He lives in the light, he has the light in himself and radiates the light to his fellow men.

What can we understand by the light? The light is a mysterious energy, which is known in all cultures of the world under different names. It is called chi, prana, breath, holy spirit or simply energy. At a certain level of spiritual development, you can feel the energy within you. It flows in energy channels, bubbles through chakras, and fills the body with well-being.

Some people cannot feel the energy, but they can feel their feelings. The energy is closely connected to the feelings. Those who can feel the energy directly can direct and develop it. Those who cannot direct the energy directly direct it through the feelings. The center of the spiritual path is to develop feelings such as inner peace, serenity, equanimity, love, happiness and clarity. We should practice our spiritual path in such a way that these feelings become stronger and stronger until, overall, we live in a state of peace, love, happiness and inner harmony. This state can be called enlightenment. We live like a Buddha in the human world.

The chakras are the energy gates of the human being. The chakras can open immeasurably. The most important chakras are the heart chakra (in the center of the chest, love), the crown chakra and the forehead chakra (happiness and clarity), the lower abdomen chakra (power) and the root chaka (pelvic floor, legs, soles of the feet, inner peace). Because the chakras can be opened immeasurably, energy can also flow immeasurably and emotions can become immeasurably strong. Peace can become immeasurably strong. Happiness can become immeasurable. Love can become immeasurable. Then, at a certain point, enlightenment arises on its own.

Enlightenment means living in a strong energy of peace, happiness, power and love. An enlightened person has overcome his ego and lives in a unity consciousness. He perceives himself as one with the world, nature and his fellow beings. He has risen above the suffering of life. This is what Buddhism is all about. Buddha declared, "Life is suffering. There is a way of liberation from suffering. This is the path of enlightenment. It consists of meditation and mindfulness of one's thoughts."

And now we come back to inner tensions. How should we meditate? How are we to work with our thoughts? We are to meditate in such a way that our inner tensions dissolve and our inner energy of happiness unfolds. We should stop thoughts that make us tense and sick inside. We are to think in such a way that healing, peace, happiness, love and enlightenment arise within us.

So, we have to look carefully at each spiritual technique and all the Buddha's words to see if they help us find inner peace, happiness and enlightenment. Then we practice them correctly. If they create inner hardening, dogmatism and aggression in us, we are practicing wrongly. So we need a lot of inner wisdom and inner feeling to find the right way. We should try the spiritual techniques and find out how they are helpful for us. This is the most important thing on the spiritual path.

Then one day we will find a life of tranquility and relaxed being. Then happiness, love, peace and health will unfold in us by themselves. Then we will realize the deeper meaning of life. This meaning is simply to be happy, to live in love and peace with all beings and to enjoy life.

Live in love

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The great secret of love is that we must live primarily from giving so that love can unfold in us and in the world. If we want to have love as a priority, we live in addiction. To live in addiction is to live in ego. And the ego destroys love in the long run.

The way of the ego is the way of worldly people. They seek happiness in the outside, in consumption, in external wealth and in other people. They do not seek happiness primarily in themselves.

The way of spiritual people is to seek happiness primarily in themselves. Only there can you find it in the long run. This is confirmed by happiness research. The happiness of a person comes to 90% from his own psyche. We should work on ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, if we want to get a happiness psyche. The first step is to become happy within ourselves. This is done through the way of meditation and thought work. It is good to do sports regularly. Sport keeps the body healthy and releases happiness hormones. It is important to think positively and focus on the positive in life. It is also important to bring a lot of joy into our personal lives. When we cultivate joy in our lives, it makes us happy.

To live in inner happiness is beautiful. But even more beautiful is to live in happiness and love. That is why there is the spiritual path of love. Buddhism is first of all a way to find peace, love and happiness within oneself. About five hundred years after Buddha, Mahayana Buddhism developed through the two Indian philosophers Nagarjuna and Asanga. It places love at the center. Mahayana Buddhism is the main direction in Buddhism today. Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Amitabha Buddhism are paths of Mahayana Buddhism.

The main model in Mahayana Buddhism is the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva can be seen as a Buddha of love who renounces extinction in Nirvana in order to help his fellow human beings on the spiritual path. A Bodhisattva lives primarily in love and giving. He takes the happiness of his fellow human beings more important than his own happiness. In this way, he overcomes his ego and reaches enlightenment through the path of comprehensive love.

However, a bodhisattva must be careful not to use up energy on the path of giving. He must also take good care of himself. He should also work on his own enlightenment. Basically, it is said that one should first realize enlightenment oneself before focusing on helping other people. I think this teaching is too radical. Who can achieve enlightenment? However, from my point of view it is good to connect the path of enlightenment with the path of love.

On this double path you have to deal wisely with yourself and your energy. One should not give more energetically than one has. One should feel exactly how much one can give and how much giving is good for one. It is basically enough to give a little in order to come into a life of love. I send light every day to all my friends and to the whole world. And then I look at where I can be helpful at the moment. That is enough.

I have found that on the way of giving, you always get love back in some way. This love may be smaller than the love you have given to the world. But if at the same time you take good care of yourself and walk the path of your own enlightenment (happiness), then getting some love back is enough to get you into a life of love. Just a smile or a kind word can open your heart.

Loving kindness

1. Develop a feeling of kindness and benevolence towards yourself. Think: "May I be kind to myself. May I feel good. May I be happy." Take good care of yourself.

2. Imagine a person you like. Wish him luck and think: "May he be well. May he be happy." How can you make your friends happy?

3. Think of someone you dislike or find difficult. Wish him love, peace and happiness too. Send him light, move a hand and think: "May this person also be happy. May he attain wisdom, peace and love." What can you do so that this person is also well and you can live in peace?

4. Imagine the whole world. Move a hand in blessing, send all light and think: "I send light to all people. May everyone be happy. May the world be happy." See yourself as the father or mother of all beings. All beings are your children, the good and the not good. Wish everyone love, happiness and peace.

5. Stop all thoughts for a minute. Just relax. Think about love.

Wikipedia: Mettā (Pali) or maitrī (Sanskrit) means benevolence, loving-kindness, friendliness, amity, good will, and active interest in others. It is the first of the four sublime states (Brahmaviharas) and one of the ten pāramīs of the Theravāda school of Buddhism.

The cultivation of benevolence (mettā bhāvanā) is a popular form of Buddhist meditation. Metta as 'compassion meditation' is often practiced in Asia by broadcast chanting, wherein monks chant for the laity".

The daily spiritual alignment

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The most important thing on the spiritual path is daily spiritual alignment. We take a few minutes each day to spiritually align our minds. Where are we right now? What are our feelings and thoughts? What is our goal? What is our situation? What is our path? What spiritual techniques do we need today?

I have seven spiritual techniques that I practice every day. 1. daily self-reflection 2. daily connection with my spiritual role model through a visualization, a mantra or reading in a book (Buddha, my enlightened master). 3. daily meditation while lying down or sitting. 4. daily exercise (yoga, walking, cycling). 5. daily alignment with love (sending light to all beings, wishing for a happy world, doing a good deed). 6. the daily spiritual orientation of thoughts (a positive daily resolution, a positive thought, a thought of wisdom). 7. enjoying life.

It is also important on the spiritual path to enjoy life sufficiently. Buddha taught the middle spiritual path. Self-discipline is the crucial element on the spiritual path that brings you to spiritual success. But too much self-discipline causes inner hardening and makes you tense inside. If you practice too tense, then no inner solution and no enlightenment takes place. You can create a certain mental dead stillness, but no inner happiness develops. For inner happiness, energy must be able to flow freely. Therefore, on the spiritual path it is also important to pay attention to sufficient inner relaxation, looseness and enjoyment of life.

A good example of this is the Dalai Lama. He follows his spiritual path full of self-discipline. He meditates many hours every day and practices his spiritual rituals. He works every day for a happy world and gives many lectures. But he also likes to laugh. He also enjoys his life. He goes laughing through life. That's why people love him.

Buddha himself lived more in tranquility. He constantly dwelt in enlightened being. He taught to meditate while sitting, walking, standing and lying down. But once he held up a flower. The flower is a symbol of the beautiful in the world. An enlightened person also sees the beautiful in the world. Through his inner happiness, his mind automatically focuses on the good and beautiful in the world.

We can attain enlightenment by practicing a positive worldview. There are several ways to do this. We can practice seeing the world as Pure Land. Everything is right the way it is. This view leads us to inner peace. We are in harmony with ourselves and the world.

An intensified form is the paradise view of the world. If we can see our world as paradise, then happiness arises in us. To do this, we need to direct our thoughts positively. We need to find a positive thought that will bring us to happiness. We can think about what we are grateful for. We can focus on the positive things in our lives. We can focus our mind on what is essential.

The essentials in life are the spiritual path and the spiritual goal. Everything else is ultimately unimportant from the perspective of enlightenment. Everything else has only the purpose of helping us practice spiritually. We can practice to reach enlightenment in all situations of life.

The highest form is the enlightenment view. In enlightenment, we then take things as they are. We no longer have an ego. We have an egoless view. Everything is as it is. There is no more judgment of right and wrong. We rest in enlightened being. We perceive the world as nirvana, a mixture of emptiness and fullness. The nirvana view is the highest happiness. There is happiness within us, and through this we perceive life as happy. And this happiness is based on the fact that we no longer have an ego and thus live in deep peace. Inner peace and inner happiness are related. In yoga, we speak of Sat-Chid-Ananda, enlightened being, unity consciousness (God consciousness, paradise view, nirvana view) and bliss.

Which form of mind alignment we choose depends on our current state. We feel what helps us and does us good at the moment. Sometimes it is difficult to reach the enlightenment view. Then we practice Paradise View or at least Pure Land View. If this is not possible for us, then it can also be good to look at the negative thoughts and feelings, to live them out and to go through them. At some point we will be able to have a positive view of the world again.

However, it is always important to align ourselves spiritually every day within the scope of our possibilities. If necessary, we pray to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for guidance and help. Then help will always come at the right time. We will be guided on our spiritual path and grow into the light. We just have to consistently listen to the voice of our inner wisdom and follow it.